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This University Is Getting Criticized for Requiring Students to Wear FitBits

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Fairfield chapter.

It’s no secret that eating disorders are a major problem in most colleges across the country. It’s also no secret that people are constantly trying to end the epidemic. Unfortunately, Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma is making it much harder for people to decrease the amount of eating disorders on school campuses.

At the beginning of the semester in January, ORU created a new component of physical education requirements, one of them requiring all incoming students to wear a Fitbit. The school generated this new policy with the best intentions, but it’s gotten a large amount of negative attention through social media.

“ORU offers one of the most unique educational approaches in the world by focusing on the Whole Person – mind, body and spirit,” said ORU President William M. Wilson.

Many people don’t seem to care about what Oral Roberts’s intentions were by making this new policy and they’ve been making that clear through online Twitter posts. The hashtag, #donttrackme, is starting to trend on social media

Not only are people who have been affected by the horrors of eating disorders speaking out, but the National Eating Disorders Association has given their opinion on this situation as well.

 

In efforts to end the mandatory use of Fitbit’s at ORU, the National Eating Disorders Association is supporting this change.org petition.

If you feel strongly about this situation you can follow the other 1,370 other people who have endorsed the petition so far and virtually sign. 

Gabriella is currently a junior at Fairfield University, where she is majoring in Marketing and minoring in Communications. She is Co-Campus Correspondent of Her Campus Fairfield with her roomie/best friend Pamela Grant! Gab can most likely be found with a Venti Starbs in hand, while wearing obnoxiously large sunnies (no shame), reading the most recent issue of Glamour Mag.